Kristina Kaufman is an artist, writer, professor, and overall "fan of anything space related" who is quite serious about picture books. She has a doctorate degree in education (Ed.D.) in curriculum and instruction, a B.S. in education with a K-9 teaching certificate, a 2nd bachelor’s degree in marketing and an MBA. She has published several scholarly academic articles in the marketing discipline and wrote a chapter for a book on STEM (published by Brill). Yet, Kristina’s passion is astronomy, which started at an early age when her grandfather gifted her a telescope – (and she would wake at 4 a.m. to see the Hale-Bopp comet.) Kristina first self-published a picture book, “I Soar”, which she wrote and collaborated with the Caldecott Honor recipient, Corey R. Tabor, to illustrate. Her latest book was inspired while travelling in New Zealand and viewing the universe from a different perspective.